Maryland Public Service Commission Testimony

Maryland Public Service Commission Testimony
In the summer of 2004, Synergics Wind Energy, LLC, filed an application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) from the Maryland Public Service Commission to construct a 40 MW wind facility in the mountains of western Maryland, since amended to request a 47.5 MW plant. In the fall of 2004, Jon Boone requested and was granted an intervenors status with the proceeding, joining a number of other parties to include the state’s Department of Natural Resources and other intervenors such as the state’s Sierra Club and the Audubon Naturalist Society. For more than a year, the applicant and the various intervenors have introduced direct testimony and expert witnesses, which culminated in an evidentiary hearing in September, 2005. The relevant documentation can be seen on the Maryland Public Service Commission website by typing in Case No. 9008.

Jon Boone has made available here all of his documents related to this proceeding—a distillation of his testimony (which includes his July 25 direct testimony, his August 16 supplemental testimony, and his September 9 surrebuttal testimony), all of which was formally introduced as evidence in the proceeding on September 16. After the evidentiary hearing on September 22, he submitted a post hearing brief on November 23 and, on December 5, a post hearing reply brief.

During the proceeding, Jon Boone submitted responses to four sets of data requests—three from Synergics and one from the Department of Natural Resources. These are presented here because they provide information about sources and procedures in this kind of regulatory hearing that might be helpful to those embarking on a similar effort.

Altogether these documents constitute his public record in this PSC process. The hearing examiner in the case is not expected to make a ruling until 2006.

Maryland Public Service Commission Testimony Attachments
Here is a compressed listing of the Attachments, which range from A-Q, noted in the Direct PSC Testimony. They include such useful material as US Wind Capacity Factor Charts, a Map of US Wind Potential, the imposing Shawano County, Wisconsin Wind Ordinance, a photograph of wind clearcuts, a summary of Lincoln Township’s record of property devaluations due to wind technology, a map showing Maryland’s wind potential by region, among many others.